When I started publishing my work, one of the biggest surprises to me was the recurring question about my background and why I wasn't doing more stories about Asian-Americans.
Adrian Tomine
I never really thought of myself as an Asian-American cartoonist, any more than I thought of myself as a cartoonist who wears glasses.
With my husband, I do really appreciate the fact that we - even though we're different kinds of Asian, there is a cultural shorthand between us, and I don't have to explain anything. I've dated guys before who weren't Asian-American, and it frustrated me when I would have to defend why beans belong in a dessert.
Ali Wong
Some useful advice for all of my Asian-American brothers and sisters - never go paint-balling with a Vietnam veteran.
I think that's what we need more of: Asian-Americans on movie screens and TV screens where they're normalized. Where it's not about them being Asian or a person of color. It's just about them being a human. I think that's why sometimes when I see movies with an Asian family, but it's very stereotyped, I don't find that relatable.
Arden Cho
I always feel like people misunderstand the difference between an Asian story and an Asian-American story. That's completely different, too. I have friends who grew up in Asia, and our experiences are so different. Even though we might look the same, I feel like being Asian and then being Asian-American is completely different.
I feel that its important for me to be out there and to represent the face. At the same time, for me as an individual, I think the Asian-American face can be crowded with the American identity.
Awkwafina
More than anything, I'm an American kid, and my music reflects that more so than being an Asian-American. I think it's important but also something that can detrimental to your career if celebrated too much.
I think that's why I was able to do well in the beginning: because it was such a foreign thing. People frame it in a negative way, like, 'For Asian-Americans there's no one out there, so that must be really bad for you.' No, I benefited from it.
There is a kind of misconception that Asian-Americans are not as American as European-Americans.
B. D. Wong
While Donald Trump is busy insulting one group after another, Hillary Clinton understands that our diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Yes. We become stronger when black and white, Latino, Asian-American, Native American - when all of us stand together.
Bernie Sanders
I am an American, not an Asian-American. My rejection of hyphenation has been called race treachery, but it is really a demand that America deliver the promises of its dream to all its citizens equally.
Bharati Mukherjee
Growing up, I never saw Asian-Americans on TV at all.
Brenda Song
With the first novel, I was concerned I would be pigeon-holed as an Asian-American writer, and the book would be labeled for Asian-Americans only.
Celeste Ng
Working on 'Fresh Off the Boat' has been really enlightening to me because it's made me actually think about the roles that Asians and Asian-American women have played in media. Not because I didn't think it was important before, but because before, I was really focused on just paying my rent.
Constance Wu
I wish reporters were more in tune to the difference between the Asian experience and the Asian-American experience. I think often they lump the two together and think that when I talk about Asian-American narratives that they can cite 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' or 'Mulan' as proof of concept when it's a different experience.
For us as Asian-Americans, I think the bane of our existence is one stereotype - 'Sixteen Candles,' the Long Duk Dong character.
Daniel Wu
It's not at all my objective to become an Asian-American star.
My work has always been controversial within certain segments of the Asian-American community. This is a community that is generally not represented well at all on the stage, in the media, etc. So on those few occasions when something comes along, everybody feels obligated to make sure that it represents his own point of view.
David Henry Hwang
As Asian-Americans, the charge that is often lobbed against us is sort of the least original: the idea that somehow we're perpetual foreigners, that we can't be trusted, and that even my father, who was patriotic to the point that it was kind of a joke among his children, would be accused of being disloyal to America.
Seriously, how many times do you see Asian-American characters that have an actual family, feelings? You don't see them love and be sad and have all the human emotions. I think that 'Gilmore Girls' is one of the very, very few where we were offered a chance to explore these characters multidimensionally.
Even if you look at 'American Idol,' or 'X-Factor,' or 'The Voice' or anything, it was always difficult to see an Asian or an Asian-American make it to a certain point.
The coolest thing for me now is when I'm in the States and I meet other Asian-Americans who are like, 'Dude, thank you so much for doing what you do. I love your music, I love whatever. But whatever you do, we're gonna support you because there aren't many Asian faces doing music.'
I've always been very passionate about trying to have Asian-Americans or Asian faces be more prominent in mainstream media.
Korean-Americans, Asian-Americans are so unbelievably underrepresented in the U.S. entertainment and media industries and I don't think we are given a real shot.
Asian-Americans are fighting for space and fighting for visibility and for acceptance.
A lot of Asians and Asian-Americans have liver problems. If you basically ask anybody who is Asian, they or one of their relatives will have some sort of a liver issue, and the liver actually falls into the jurisdiction of the gastroenterologist.
I'm a chairman on the Board of Governors for the East-West Players, the longest-running Asian-American theater company in America.
My mother is Afro-Caribbean and my father is Caucasian-American, and I was born in Pennsylvania and moved to the Cayman Islands when I was about 2. So I grew up there with my mother, and it's really all I know. I grew up there until it was time to go to college, and that's when I moved back to America.
Being the only Asian-American in the State Legislature, I've had no choice but to reach across the aisle.
There are many Asian-Americans who are living in poverty, especially our senior citizens.
I worked at ILM the same time Masi Oka was there. Who would have thought that two Asian-American nerds from ILM would be on hit shows?
Asian-Americans, we're not a monolithic group. There might be some Asians who are second-generation, third-generation, who may not speak the language that their parents or their grandparents spoke.
As an Asian-American actor, I believe it is important to never settle for the status quo. I feel a responsibility to do everything in my power to create positive perceptions of Asian Americans through my work.
The narrative needs to change. Asian-American actresses don't want to be the damsels in distress anymore. We don't want to be saved, especially by a white man.
The feedback for 'P.S. I Still Love You' has been pretty amazing. To have written this story about this family with Asian-American characters and be so embraced is really incredible for me as a writer as well as a person of color.
With Asian-Americans actors, specifically, there's been fewer opportunities for them in TV and film and fewer that have the ability to actually make a career out of it. It becomes a bit of a chicken and egg situation, where they're like, 'Oh, but they're not famous names,' but they haven't had a chance to be in anything yet, either.
Growing up in America, I experienced two puberties. The first opened me up to the possibilities of adulthood. The second reinforced that for someone like me - an immigrant, a minority, an Asian-American - there were limits.
It's weird for me to say I'm lucky when I can't go into a bookstore and have more than five choices if I want to read something about Asian-American characters.
I'm very humbled and honored. I'm very thankful to the Asian-American Community for all their support!
Coming out of college into the draft, being Asian-American and being from Harvard, that's not going to be an advantage because of stereotypes.
The color and the diversity dies out, and it gets whiter and whiter, and that's in any field. There is also this idea that there can only be one gay person or there can only be one Asian-American woman in the office, and so it also perpetuates itself where we are isolated, especially the more successful we get.
I feel like there's this need that the Asian-American community has to feel like people. It's something that Asians in Asia do not understand about us.
The Asian-American kids I meet respond to a democracy in the vulgarity of my roles.
I don't like when an Asian-American actor says, 'I'm entering this business to change Hollywood.' It feels like the wrong reason - I would prefer they entered the business for artistic reasons, because they need to do it.
When I was finishing 'Now You See Me 2,' I remember thinking about exploring the Asian-American identity side of my brain.
I've gotten scholarships from the Asian-American Directors Guild of America society and things like that, and those things helped me, even if I didn't realize how much.
I know certainly that my parents sacrificed a lot to come to America, and to... start a new life for their family and their future families. At least with first-generation Asian-American immigrants, parents put so much risk in work and to provide the best for their children.
When he ran for president in 2008, Mr. Obama was the candidate of the young and the demographically ascendant. He eventually attracted strong majorities among African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and voters under 30.
To be honest, I'm really into folk music, and I love Big Phony. I like Priscilla Ahn, and yeah, I really support Asian-American artists.
